


The Party

by loup_garou



Category: Arrow (TV 2012), Batman - All Media Types
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-03
Updated: 2021-03-03
Packaged: 2021-03-16 11:16:27
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,168
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29824125
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/loup_garou/pseuds/loup_garou
Summary: Rich people throw boring parties, even in Gotham
Comments: 8
Kudos: 55





	The Party

Oliver is bored. It is true, as he has noted before, that one great benefit of the whole vigilante thing is that it rarely involves formal dining; unfortunately, being Oliver Queen of Queen Consolidated does. And today it also involves a reception with a string quartet and canapes at Wayne Manor, with the particularly inane moron that is Brucie Wayne. 

Brucie is, as expected, holding court with loudly laughing rich men and dozens of very young models. You would think he’d have the grace to age out of that, at least now that he has a seemingly unending supply of adopted kids to look after, but no. He’s going a little grey, but his ability to laugh, drink, and be an idiot in general is undiminished. Oliver sometimes wonders how the serious kid he remembers, vaguely, from his childhood years, turned into this. Trauma, presumably.

The kids, whom Oliver has met a few times throughout the years, are at least a little smarter than Brucie. On the other hand, it’s hard to imagine anyone who could be dumber than Brucie and still remember how to breathe. They’re all ridiculously good-looking, and dressed to kill, of course. With their dark hair and blue eyes they could all be Brucie’s biological children, and rumour does indeed say they are. For their own sakes, Oliver hopes they aren’t.

Dick walks past him, a gorgeous woman on his arm and a glass of champagne in his hand. He smiles at Oliver and nods in passing, walking steadily enough that he hasn’t had all that much to drink yet. Come to think of it, Oliver has never seen him drunk: always smiling, poised, perfectly charming, giving nothing away. Huh. Smarter than Brucie, definitely. Except a truly smart kid would lose the nickname – who goes by ‘Dick’ in this day and age? 

The party, other than being terminally boring, is perfect. The finger food is delicious and renewed constantly so as not to go stale; the manor’s ballroom is bright, elegant, and enormous; the host is genial and friendly to everyone. If he knew what Oliver knows about some of his guests he wouldn’t be so happy to see them in his home. 

Two more kids he thinks are Brucie’s drift past – young women, wearing very fancy dresses, one Asian and one blonde. Look at that, Brucie made it out of his phase of only adopting dark-haired kids. Amazing. Maybe the blonde is actually his biological child, so she had to be admitted into the ever-growing brood? They were not raised in this kind of environment, that is clear to anyone who was, but they are giggly and happy and Oliver smiles at them. Someone should be appreciating the party. Their nails are painted the same purple with gold flecks - come to think of it, so were Dick’s. Definitely Brucie’s, then.

He is carefully avoiding Brucie’s youngest, who is known for being rude, snotty, and sometimes violent. The question what to do if the host’s son bites you has been put at these parties and never satisfactorily answered: better not be part of that investigation. The perfectly fitted tuxedo and neatly combed hair is only a cover, the kid is feral. If he ends up CEO of Wayne Enterprises, Oliver is selling his company and retiring.

The proper heir to WE is chatting with a group of men 30 years his seniors, looking every inch the successful intern everyone knows will be their boss one day. Tom? Tim? Whatever. Born into one rich family, adopted into another, probably just so that Brucie would have one kid who could take over the company. It makes you wonder what happened to the Drakes – Oliver would suspect Brucie of putting out the hit if he had the smarts to do anything like that. Sheer dumb luck: the neighbours die, Brucie ends up with the perfect little corporate CEO clone. Not that there were all that many other options: Dick isn’t interested, the second kid died, the girls are clearly just partying, and the youngest... Well. Fun as it would be, biting shareholders isn’t appropriate. 

Oliver drifts over to the buffet table and picks up some miniature Danishes. The creepy butler that the Waynes have employed since time immemorial is quietly overseeing things, discreetly directing the hired staff. There he is, the brains of the outfit. He’s done well by the Waynes, though, raising Brucie rather than packing him off to a boarding school, and running the orphanage Brucie insists on turning the house into. When the two Wayne girls show up next to Oliver, he can see the butler’s smile turn genuine for a second. Nice to see that someone really cares about the kids.

Too late he realises he’s ended up next to the youngest kid. The child looks up at him with his green eyes, wrinkles his brow and says, condescendingly, “Mr. Queen.” Oliver picks up another Danish and responds “Mr. Wayne.” The quick moment of surprise and – he thinks – pleasure on the child’s face surprises him. The child unbends enough to say “It is a pleasure to see you as my father’s guest. If you’ll excuse me, it is time for me to retire.” The butler is smiling at the little brat, clearly happy that he has managed two sentences of politeness. “It is indeed time for that, Master Damian. Would you like some tea before going to bed?” he says. The boy looks like he’d smile back if he knew how, and says “Thank you, Pennyworth. That would be acceptable,” and goes with the butler. Oliver is left at the table, wishing it was time for him to retire, too. He should stay at least another hour, talking to boring people and dreaming of shooting them. At least the criminal ones. 

As he turns away, he almost bumps into a tall man – as tall and as wide as Brucie, in fact. He apologises and indicates his glass, implying he’s had a little much. He hasn’t; Oliver knows better than to drink too much at parties like this one. It does nothing to alleviate the boredom except if you do so for everyone else by making a fool of yourself. The man smiles at him, a slow, dangerous smile that reminds him of someone. “No worries,” he says, in a gravelly voice with an accent that is definitely not from the good part of Gotham. Bodyguard? Self-made man? Who cares? Oliver is getting out of here.

He wanders up to Brucie, makes his excuses, and leaves, relieved to be out of there. It is unbelievable that Gotham can still have parties like this, with all the rich idiots drinking together and seemingly not worrying that they might end up a victim to any of Gotham’s crazy villains on the way home. It’s probably a good thing they have equally crazy bat-themed vigilantes: the likes of Brucie Wayne and his kids would have a life expectancy of two weeks were it not for the bats.


End file.
